Cold-Hearted Rake Read online

  Devon had known this was exactly how she would react. People first, business second. But that wasn’t always possible. “We’re discussing four families out of two hundred,” he said. “If I don’t strike a deal with London Ironstone, all the Eversby Priory tenants may lose their farms.”

  “There has to be another way,” Kathleen insisted.

  “If there were, I’d have found it.” She knew nothing of all the sleepless nights and exhausting days he’d spent searching for alternatives. There was no good solution, only a choice between several bad solutions, and this was the least harmful.

  Kathleen stared at him as if she’d just caught him snatching a crust of bread from an orphan. “But —”

  “Don’t press me on this,” Devon snapped, losing his patience. “It’s difficult enough without a display of adolescent drama.”

  Kathleen’s face went white. Without another word, she turned and strode from the library.

  West sighed and glanced at Devon. “Well done. Why bother reasoning with her when you can simply crush her into submission?”

  Before Devon could reply, his brother had left to follow Kathleen.

  Chapter 13

  K

  athleen was halfway down the hallway before West could catch up to her.

  Having become acquainted with Kathleen, and knowing Devon as well as anyone could, West could say with authority that they brought out the worst in each other. When they were in the same room, he reflected with exasperation, tempers flared and words became bullets. The devil knew why they found it so difficult to be civil to each other.

  “Kathleen,” West said quietly as he reached her.

  She stopped and turned to face him. Her face was drawn, her mouth tight.

  Having endured the lash of Devon’s temper more than a few times in the past, West understood how deeply it could cut. “The estate’s financial disaster is not of Devon’s making,” he said. “He’s only trying to minimize the casualties. You can’t blame him for that.”

  “Tell me what I can blame him for, then.”

  “In this situation?” A note of apology entered his voice. “Being realistic.”

  Kathleen gave him a reproachful glance. “Why should four families pay the price for all the rest of us to survive? He has to find some other way.”

  West rubbed the back of his neck, which was stiff after two nights of sleeping on a lumpy bed in a cold farmhouse. “Life is hardly ever fair, little friend. As you well know.”

  “Can’t you talk him out of it?” she brought herself to ask.

  “Not when I would make the same decision. The fact is, once we lease the land to London Ironstone, that tiny eastern portion of the estate will become our only source of reliable profit.”

  Her head lowered. “I thought you would be on the tenants’ side.”

  “I am. You know I am.” West reached out to take her narrow shoulders in a warm, sustaining grip. “I swear to you, we’ll do everything possible to help them. Their farms will be reduced in size, but if they’re willing to learn modern methods, they could produce double their annual yields.” To make certain she was listening, he gave her the gentlest possible shake. “I’ll persuade Devon to give them every advantage: We’ll reduce their rents and provide drainage and building improvements. We’ll even supply machinery to help them plow and harvest.” Staring down into her mutinous face, he said ruefully, “Don’t look like that. Good God, one would think we were conspiring to murder someone.”

  “I have just the person in mind,” she muttered.

  “You had better pray that nothing ever happens to him, because then I would become the earl. And I would wash my hands of the estate.”

  “Would you really?” She seemed genuinely shocked.

  “Before you could blink.”

  “But you’ve worked so hard for the tenants…”

  “As you yourself once said, Devon is carrying a heavy burden. There’s nothing in this world I want badly enough to be willing to do what my brother is doing. Which means I have no choice but to support him.”

  Kathleen nodded glumly.

  “Now you’re being practical.” West smiled slightly. “Will you accompany me back to the lion’s den?”

  “No, I’m tired of quarreling.” Briefly she rested her forehead against his chest, a close and trusting gesture that touched him nearly as much as it surprised him.

  After parting company with Kathleen, West returned to the library.

  Devon was outwardly calm as he stood at the table and stared down at the map. However, the pencil had been broken into multiple pieces that were scattered across the carpet.

  Contemplating Devon’s hard profile, West asked blandly, “Could you try to be a bit more artful in dealing with her? Perhaps use a smidgen of diplomacy? Because even though I happen to agree with your position, you’re being a donkey’s arse about it.”

  Devon sent him a wrathful glance. “I’ll be damned if I have to win her approval before making decisions about my estate.”

  “Unlike either of us, she has a conscience. It won’t hurt you at all to hear her opinion. Especially since she happens to be right.”

  “You just said you agreed with my position!”

  “From a practical standpoint. Morally, Kathleen is right.” West watched as his brother prowled away from the table and back again, pacing like a caged tiger. “You have to understand something about her,” he said. “She’s spirited on the surface, but sensitive at the core. If you show her just a little consideration —”

  “I don’t need you to explain her to me.”

  “I know her better than you,” West said sharply. “I’ve been living with her, for God’s sake.”

  That earned him a chilling glance. “Do you want her?” Devon asked brusquely.

  West was baffled by the question, which seemed to have come from nowhere. “Want her? In the biblical sense? Of course not, she’s a widow. Theo’s widow. How could anyone…” His voice faded as he saw that Devon had resumed pacing, his expression murderous.

  Thunderstruck, West realized what the most likely reason was for all the free-floating hostility and high-riding tension between Devon and Kathleen. He closed his eyes briefly. This was bad. Bad for everyone, bad for the future, just bloody awful compounding badness in all directions. He decided to test his theory in the hope that he was mistaken.

  “Although,” West continued, “she is a little beauty, isn’t she? One could find all kinds of entertaining uses for that sweet mouth. I wouldn’t mind catching her in a dark corner and having some fun. She might resist at first, but soon I’d have her writhing like a cat —”

  Devon lunged at him in a blur of motion, seizing West by the lapels. “Touch her and I’ll kill you,” he snarled.

  West stared at him in appalled disbelief. “I knew it. Sweet Mother of God! You want her.”

  Devon’s visceral fury appeared to fade a few degrees as he realized he had just been outmaneuvered. He released West abruptly.

  “You took Theo’s title and his home,” West continued in appalled disbelief, “and now you want his wife.”

  “His widow,” Devon muttered.

  “Have you seduced her?”

  “Not yet.”

  West clapped his hand to his forehead. “Christ. Don’t you think she’s suffered enough? Oh, go on and glare. Snap me in pieces like that blasted pencil. It will only confirm that you’re no better than Theo.” Reading the outrage in his brother’s expression, he said, “Your relationships typically last no longer than the contents of the meat larder. You have a devil of a temper, and if the way you just handled her is an example of how you’ll deal with disagreements —”

  “That’s enough,” Devon said with dangerous softness.

  Rubbing his forehead, West sighed and continued wearily. “Devon, you and I have always overlooked each other’s faults, but that doesn’t mean we’re oblivious to them. This is nothing but blind, stupid lust. Have the decency to leave her alone. Kathle
en is a sensitive and compassionate woman who deserves to be loved… and if you have any capacity for that, I’ve never witnessed it. I’ve seen what happens to women who care about you. Nothing cools your lust faster than affection.”

  Devon gave him a cold stare. “Are you going to say anything to her?”

  “No, I’ll hold my tongue and hope that you’ll come to your senses.”

  “There’s no need to worry,” Devon said darkly. “At this point I’ve made her so ill-disposed toward me that it would be a miracle if I ever manage to lure her to my bed.”

  After considering the idea of missing dinner for the second night in a row, Kathleen decided in a spirit of defiance to join the family in the dining room. It was Devon’s last evening at Eversby Priory, and she could force herself to endure an hour and a half of sitting at the same table with him. Devon insisted on seating her, his face inscrutable, and she thanked him with a few clipped words. But even with that civilized distance between them, she was in an agony of nerves and anger… most of it directed at herself.

  Those kisses… the impossible, terrible pleasure of them… how could he have done that to her? How could she have responded so wantonly? The fault was more hers than Devon’s. He was a London rake; of course he would make advances to her, or to any woman in his proximity. She should have resisted, slapped him, but instead she had stood there and let him… let him…

  She couldn’t find the right words for what he had done. He had shown her a side of herself that she had never known existed. She had been raised to believe that lust was a sin, and she had self-righteously considered herself to be above carnal desire… until Devon had proven otherwise. Oh, the shocking heat of his tongue against hers, and the shivery weakness that had made her want to sink to the floor and have him cover her… She could have wept for shame.

  Instead, she could only sit there suffocating while the conversation flowed around her. It was a pity she couldn’t enjoy the meal, a succulent partridge pie served with fried oyster patties and a crisp salted salad of celery, radishes, and cucumber. As she forced herself to take a few bites, every mouthful seemed to stick in her throat.

  As talk turned to the subject of the approaching holiday, Cassandra asked Devon if he planned to come to Eversby Priory for Christmas.

  “Would that please you?” Devon asked.

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Will you bring presents?” Pandora asked.

  “Pandora,” Kathleen chided.

  Devon grinned. “What would you like?” he asked the twins.

  “Anything from Winterborne’s,” Pandora exclaimed.

  “I want people for Christmas,” Cassandra said wistfully. “Pandora, do you remember the Christmas balls that Mama gave when we were little? All the ladies in their finery, and the gentlemen in formal attire… the music and dancing…”

  “And the feasting…” Pandora added. “Puddings, cakes, mince pies…”

  “Next year we’ll make merry again,” Helen said gently, smiling at the pair of them. She turned to West. “How do you usually celebrate Christmas, cousin?”

  He hesitated before replying, seeming to ponder whether to answer truthfully. Honesty won out. “On Christmas Day I visit friends in a parasitical fashion, going from house to house and drinking until I finally fall unconscious in someone’s parlor. Then someone pours me into a carriage and sends me home, and my servants put me to bed.”

  “That doesn’t sound very merry,” Cassandra said.

  “Beginning this year,” Devon said, “I intend for us all to do the holiday justice. In fact, I’ve invited a friend to share Christmas with us at Eversby Priory.”

  The table fell silent, everyone staring at him in collective surprise.

  “Who?” Kathleen asked suspiciously. For his sake, she hoped it wasn’t one of those railway men plotting to destroy tenant farms.

  “Mr. Winterborne himself.”

  Amid the girls’ gasping and squealing, Kathleen scowled at Devon. Damn him, he knew it wasn’t right to invite a stranger to a house of mourning. “The owner of a department store?” she asked. “No doubt accompanied by a crowd of fashionable friends and hangers-on? My lord, surely you haven’t forgotten that we’re all in mourning!”

  “How could I?” he parried with a pointed glance that incensed her. “Winterborne will come alone, as a matter of fact. I doubt it will burden my household unduly to set one extra place at the table on Christmas Eve.”

  “A gentleman of Mr. Winterborne’s influence must already have a thousand invitations for the holiday. Why must he come here?”

  Devon’s eyes glinted with enjoyment at her barely contained fury. “Winterborne is a private man. I suppose the idea of a quiet holiday in the country appeals to him. For his sake, I would like to have a proper Christmas feast. And perhaps a few carols could be sung.”

  The girls chimed in at once.

  “Oh, do say yes, Kathleen!”

  “That would be splendicious!”

  Even Helen murmured something to the effect that she couldn’t see how it would do any harm.

  “Why stop there?” Kathleen asked sarcastically, giving Devon a look of open animosity. “Why not have musicians and dancing, and a great tall tree lit with candles?”

  “What excellent suggestions,” came Devon’s silky reply. “Yes, let’s have all of that.”

  Infuriated to the point of speechlessness, Kathleen glared at him while Helen discreetly pried the butter knife from her clenched fingers.

  Chapter 14

  D

  ecember swept over Hampshire, bringing chilling breezes and whitening the trees and hedgerows with frost. In the household’s general enthusiasm for the approaching holiday, Kathleen soon gave up any hope of curtailing the celebrations. She found herself surrendering by degrees. First she consented to let the servants plan their own party on Christmas Eve, and then she agreed to allow a large fir tree in the entrance hall.

  And then West asked if the festivities could be expanded even more.

  He found Kathleen in the study, laboring over correspondence. “May I interrupt you for a few moments?”

  “Of course.” She gestured to a chair near her writing desk, and set the pen in its holder. Noticing the deliberately bland expression on his face, she asked, “What scheme are you hatching?”

  He blinked in surprise. “How do you know there’s a scheme?”

  “Whenever you try to look innocent, it’s obvious you’re up to something.”

  West grinned. “The girls wouldn’t dare approach you about it, but I told them I would, since it’s been established that I can outrun you when necessary.” He paused. “It seems that Lord and Lady Trenear used to invite all the tenant families and some local tradesmen to a party on Christmas Eve —”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Yes, that was my first reaction. However…” He gave her a patient, cajoling glance. “Encouraging a spirit of community would benefit everyone on the estate.” He paused. “It’s not that different from the charitable visits you pay to those families individually.”

  Kathleen buried her face in her hands with a groan. A grand party. Music. Presents, sweets, holiday cheer. She knew exactly what Lady Berwick would have said: It was indecent to host such revelry in a house of mourning. It was wrong to steal a day or two of joy out of a year that had been set aside for sorrow. Worst of all, she secretly wanted to do it.

  She spoke through her fingers. “It’s not proper,” she said weakly. “We haven’t done anything the way we should: The black was taken from the windows far too early, and no one’s wearing veils anymore, and —”

  “No one gives a damn,” West said. “Do you think any of the tenants would blame you for setting aside your mourning just for one night? To the contrary, they would appreciate it as a gesture of kindness and goodwill. I know next to nothing about Christmas, of course, but even so… it strikes me as being in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.” At her long hesitation, he went in for the kil
l. “I’ll pay for it out of my own income. After all…” A touch of self-pity shaded his voice. “… how else am I to learn about Christmas?”

  Lowering her hands, Kathleen gave him a dark glance. “You’re a shameless manipulator, Weston Ravenel.”

  He grinned. “I knew you’d say yes.”

  “It’s a very tall tree,” Helen commented a week later, as they stood in the entrance hall.

  “We’ve never had one this large before,” Mrs. Church admitted with a perturbed frown.

  Together they watched as West, a pair of footmen, and the butler struggled to heft the trunk of an enormous fir into a metal tub filled with stones. The air was filled with masculine grunts and profanity. Shiny green needles sprinkled across the floor, pencil-thin cones scattering as the tree was hoisted upward. Their underbutler stood halfway up the curving grand staircases, holding the end of a cord that had been tied to an upper section of the trunk. On the other side of the hall, Pandora and Cassandra stood at the second-floor balcony, gripping another attached cord. Once the trunk was positioned perfectly, the cords would be tied to the balustrade spindles to keep the tree from tilting to one side or the other.